Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas

Archives for March 13, 2003

I am aware that there are medical tattoos. The ones I am familiar with are tiny dots used as ‘aimpoints’ for radiation during the treatment of cancer, and they’re usually quite small and hard to find unless you know what you’re looking for.

Yahoo has a report of a person getting a tattoo for medical reasons, but not for life-saving, quite the opposite: she got a DNR tattoo!

LONDON (Reuters) – An 85 year-old widow is so determined not to be resuscitated against her will by doctors that she has tattooed the words “Do Not Resuscitate” across her chest.

Frances Polack, a former nurse, said she paid $40 for a tattoo with the instruction and a heart with a ‘no-go’ sign in red and blue to ensure medical staff knew she did not want to be revived.

I guarantee that is one DNR request that would be honored. And I hope she doesn’t have to use it for a very long time.

In an accident in the way out West Texas mountains, Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder, crashed as a passenger in a helicopter, MyWestTexas.com

He apparently had only minor injuries, which is fortunate. He was treated and released at the local hospital, and hopefully is having a speedy recovery. His treatment is one of my corollary ER horrors, treatment of The Famous in the ER. It is never good, because either they, and certainly their loser hanger-on entourage, insist on being painful and involved, demanding things nobody else gets. I was only peripherally involved with the treatment of an “A List” actress, and it turned our ER into a zoo.

I’m glad nobody was badly injured, and I hope they were nice to their ER folks.